their benefit in Merrion Square, when (among other tunes) the pipers played ‘Highland Laddie’. Coincidentally, according to a
report in a weekly provincial newspaper, The Leinster Express, 20 March 1897, one which had obviously been held over for a week, one of the pipers was an Irishman:
IRISH PIPERS INTHE ARMY.
Murphy of the Scots Guards. Piper Jeremiah Murphy,now
stationed with his regiment, the Scots Guards, at Richmond . . . Barracks, enjoys a unique distinction. He is the first and only Irishman that ever skirled pipes in that corps, in which he enlisted a little over four years ago at Pres-ton, Lancashire. He is a muscu-lar, well-set-up young Kildare man, whose bearing no less than his name tells of his nationality. He hails from Castlemitchell, near Athy, and though he joined the corps as an ordinary private, six months afterwards he was selected as one of those who provide the ear-piercing music which is supposed to arouse the enthusiasm of the Scotch battalions. Twelve months tuition completed his education as a piper, and the forty or fifty Glasgow Irishmen who serve in the same regiment now have the satisfaction of knowing when the martial strains of the pipes
are being awakened that one of their own is taking a foremost part in the display. Piper Murphy is now a piper
‘Piper Murphy is now a piper of four years
of four years experience. There are ten attached to his battalion – which by the way, with its pipes and fifes will add to the entertainment provided at this evening’s torchlight tattoo, org- anised in the Upper CastleYard in honour of his excellency the Lord Lieutenant. Like the other regiments of the Guards the Scots Guards have only three home stations, London, Windsor,
Dublin, and the battalion at present serving here will, it is understood, leave Ireland about the end of April,
their period of service here having lasted about one year. Piper Murphy, it may be mentioned, is a member of the Gaelic League, and has become a student of the old tongue, in which one other member of the pipe band, a Highland Scotsman, also has some proficiency.
Incidentally, the guests (if not the
soldiers) would have entered the Upper Castle Yard through its gate on Cork Hill.This hill, a short, steep dog leg, is named from a mansion built there c.1604 by Richard Boyle (1566-1644), 1st earl of Cork. Though there are places called Cork Hill elsewhere in Ireland, this is probably the one which gave its name to the jig ‘Cork Hill’.